By T. M. LUHRMANN
OPINION The Violence in Our Heads: Schizophrenic Americans hear more threatening voices.
STANFORD, Calif. — THE specter of violence caused by mental illness keeps raising its head. The Newtown, Conn., school killer may have suffered from the tormenting voices characteristic of schizophrenia; it’s possible that he killed his mother after she was spooked by his strange behavior and tried to institutionalize him. We now know that Aaron Alexis, who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, heard voices; many observers assume that he, too, struggled with schizophrenia.
To be clear: a vast majority of people with schizophrenia — a disease we popularly associate with violence — never commit violent acts. They are far more likely to be the victims of violence than perpetrators of it. But research shows us that the risk of violence from people with schizophrenia is real — significantly greater than it is in the broader population — and that the risk increases sharply when people have disturbing hallucinations and use street drugs. We also know that many people with schizophrenia hear voices only they can hear. Those voices feel real, spoken by an external, commanding authority. They are often mean and violent.
Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/opinion/...
To be clear: a vast majority of people with schizophrenia — a disease we popularly associate with violence — never commit violent acts. They are far more likely to be the victims of violence than perpetrators of it. But research shows us that the risk of violence from people with schizophrenia is real — significantly greater than it is in the broader population — and that the risk increases sharply when people have disturbing hallucinations and use street drugs. We also know that many people with schizophrenia hear voices only they can hear. Those voices feel real, spoken by an external, commanding authority. They are often mean and violent.
Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/opinion/...
..."An unsettling question is whether the violent commands from these voices reflect our culture as much as they result from the disease process of the illness. In the past few years I have been working with some colleagues at the Schizophrenia Research Foundation in Chennai, India, to compare the voice-hearing experience of people with schizophrenia in the United States and India."...